Finishing the Hat

It continues to be cold and as my place of work is trying very hard but not really able to keep up with the chill outside (we're still not in positive temps (-2F/-18C) when I started this post) it's very chilly in my cube.  I'm sitting on my heating pad and trying to stay warm.

But I have the first project of the year done!

Sunday night, I took a left turn on the Malabrigo Sockhead that I've been working on and decided that it was more likely to be worn as a beanie. I also noted that if I finished it, I could layer it under the bulky weight ear warmer (not handknit but it's cute) when I had to come to work today. A few decreases later and ta da, I have a hat!

Yes, I'm wearing it indoors right now. It's cold in here.

This took about 200 yards of Malabrigo sock weight on size 2 (2.75 mm) needles. I knit about 5" of ribbing and then 5" or so of stockinette, worked the decreases and cast off. I only cast on 128 stitches, so I ended up ending with 16 stitches rather than 10.  

It's soft and warm and obviously already in rotation. 

Tonight's plans? Finish up the fingerless mitts in planning for me and start a giant alpaca cowl. It may be headed back up to nearly 40F/4C by the weekend but I'm taking no chances.  

Hunkering Down

The Philosopher and I are fine thus far through the multiple winter storms. The temperature is dropping steadily and I don't think it's stopped snowing yet (6.2" in the past 24 hours) but we're safe, warm, indoors, and have power and water. Both of our universities have closed except for safety/food/hospital for tomorrow and so we're both just planning to work here at home and continue eating the ham and beans we tossed in the crockpot yesterday and cornbread that I made yesterday evening.

I'm glad we ran errands yesterday when it was hovering near freezing. The garbage and recycling went out, we stopped by the library to pick up books (because, you know, neither of us has ANYTHING to read), and popped into the grocery for more mayo so I can make egg salad tomorrow. The downtown grocery wasn't very busy though the ones out by us, we expect, were all probably absolutely packed.

Last night we headed down into Chicago. We'd not planned on going anywhere but friends sent out a call last minute for a birthday celebration and we squeezed into a small bar with them and traded holiday stories and general revelry. Several Stone Vanilla Bean porters were drunk, among other beers, and--as I explained to a very pregnant friend--it tasted similar when you lick a drip of vanilla off of your hand when you're making cookies, a very vanilla forward flavor. I found this most acceptable.

Our cab ride home, having missed the last trains, was slippery though I only held my breath during one point. Lake Shore Drive was still surprisingly clear and traffic was very quiet, so drivers could navigate slowly.  We both really appreciated the gracious care of our cab driver last night and yes, we tip extra when the roads are bad.

I got a whack of knitting done at the bar and turned the heel of Sock 1.  This was challenging in a dark bar because it's rather hard to count rows by TV-in-the-corner light. Fortunately, stockinette meant that the yarn started striping nicely in two row segments, so I didn't have to resort to asking someone to hold my cellphone up so I could count. This picture is slightly truer in color.

And after that it made an interesting larger stripe on the bottom of the heel.  I showed this occurrence to the Philosopher after I was working on the gusset again. He'd been eyeballing the yarn with a couple of subtle hints that if I decided I didn't like the yarn after all, I could always make the foot his size and he'd suffer through somehow. The heel somewhat negated this, he really doesn't like nice even stripes, though we agreed that if push came to shove, he could just wear them inside out so he only saw the purl side. 

So it appears that these will be staying in my sock drawer, which is a good thing. Before I started knitting copious pair of socks, the Incredibly Patient Mother had purchased me some wool socks. As they are warm and continued to be useful, they stayed in rotation even after my pajama drawer had to start making a lot of room for handknits. Tonight I pulled on a pair and found that I'd worn holes in the bottom of both feet. Thus it is that a new pair will need be finished soon, lest I have to wash my woolies more frequently.  

I hope you're warm and safe where you are. We'll be watching the cold front from in our apartment and wrapped in wool.  

Why Aren't You Wearing a Hat?

Chicago has come through the snowstorm and today the sky is a brilliant blue with only the barest wisps of clouds.

It was -2F (-18C) when I left the house this morning, so it's amusing to read the New York Times telling us that it's "brutally cold" at 13 degrees. That said, I look north to my friends in Montreal and am grateful that it's a bit warmer here and headed up for the next 24 hours.

People watching on the train this morning saw all sorts of winter gear in full effect. I have a not-very-well-developed theory about why Chicago people prefer to wear ridiculously bright clothing all summer and how it's reactionary to being in our black coats all winter. Well, in my case, my down coat is cream and I look like a giant marshmallow from December thru March but everywhere I'm surrounded by black coats with some brown, some grey, and the very occasional pop of bright color. It makes everything and everyone seem very muted. I'm sure someone will remind me of that next summer when my eyes are searing from seeing how the spring 2014 Pantones (Freesia, really?) play out. (Also can't peplum die?)

We've also reached the point where I'm pretty judgmental of people who don't wear a hat. Up until now, okay, fine, if you want to have cold ears, that's up to you. Now? Even the Philosopher is wearing his ear warmers and, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if he had borrowed one of my hats and worn it to the office today. [And yes, that's a self-reminder that a) I'm making him new mitts and haven't made enough progress and b) I bought yarn last year to hodgepodge together a hat for him that he promises to actually wear.]

Knitting continues slowly. I've got another inch or so done on the first sock. I was reading on my commutes yesterday and this morning, but I finished that book--Confessions of an Arranged Marriage by Miranda Neville, borrowed on my tablet from the library--so on the way home I have Terry Pratchett (Eric) and knitting to do.

Hoping you have a warm and indoor weekend wearing all the wool! Go put on a hat.

Freshly Started

Happy New Year!!

It's snowing heavily outside. We're getting lake effect snow and, when last I looked at weather.com, it told me that while we've gotten 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, that's only been about 0.4 inches of actual water. So it's light, fluffly, and it hasn't really stopped snowing since midday yesterday.

I ventured out midday to move my car. Once we get 4 inches of snow, we're considered to be under a snow emergency and Evanson puts alternate side parking rules into effect for a bit. While we haven't heard the sirens yet (we'll hear a short blast around 8 p.m. of the tornado sirens), that will be our notification that tomorrow we have to follow those rules. Having watched it snow all of yesterday afternoon and evening, it seemed pretty intuitive that tomorrow, my first day back to work, we'll have to observe the alternate parking and I wanted to get my car cleared off and moved while it was light out and while I could see a couple of parking spots. It's likely we'll need to observe on Friday as well and tomorrow evening it will be late and dark when I get home from work and then will get to hunt around for a parking spot where I can leave the car for Friday.

The days are beginning to be a little bit longer but I won't be coming home in the light for some time yet.

I did take knitting to the New Year's Eve party we attended last night. While I'm sure any of my current projects on the go would have been acceptable knitting --and while I didn't do a whole lot of knitting, rows were still knit. The new socks have begun. I've been really surprised and pleased with how the yarn (Baah! La Jolla) is knitting up. I was expecting spiral or pools but at 60 stitches/1x1 ribbing it's just stacking up green on purple. It's an acid green apple with a vibrant grape jelly.

Seeing a little other love recently is the second pair of mitts. Forgive the sepia toned picture. My camera battery decided it didn't feel like charging and I cannot get my cell phone to focus as well, nor can I seem to get colors correctly at all.

And the Philosopher's requested mitts, though this hasn't really been touched in a few days.

Somewhere around the apartment is also the blue hat, now with several inches of stockinette added to the ribbing, but I can't find it. I know I had it yesterday when I was at lunch (Korean BBQ, we met up with a couple of friends who are very nearly parents) but my rummage around the apartment didn't turn up anything.  Hopefully it'll show up in the next dig about.  

Hoping that you're staying warm and not having to dig too much snow.  I'm back to work tomorrow so it's the return of commute knitting and squeezing in a few rows here and there in the evening.  Off into 2014!

Endless Small Blue Circle

Yesterday was black hole knitting.  The kind where you knit and knit and knit (and ignore ALL the other things you're supposed to be doing) and knit and knit and knit and yet the ribbing on a hat never seems to get past 3.5".  I've really been wanting to start my first pair of socks for 2014 even though we're technically still in the last days of 2013 and the yarn is all caked and the needles are shiny and...

The blue Malabrigo hat I told you about was also still sitting next to my keyboard and apparently I have some ability to shame myself into working on specific projects--at least, I seem to be able to do so in order to avoid other non-knitting related projects. Last night after knitting seemingly forever into the black hole of ribbing, as I crawled into bed with knitting and my tablet, I grabbed the measuring tape again.

4.5"

Where that extra inch of ribbing came from, considering that I'd been measuring regularly, is unclear but I've moved on to the stockinette stitch section. That's going to be 9" and I plowed through about an inch last night so there is currently some hope that I might finish the hat in less than a year.  This will be the second Sockhead hat that I've knit without an intended recipient but it makes another nice addition to the gift bin.

I'm being very monogamous and not knitting any of the other things that are griping at me from the knitting bags, boxes, piles, tubs, etc.

Unfortunately, knitting endless rounds of stockinette on small needles isn't getting the other things that need to be done off of the to do list.  Off to do more work on those things...

New Yarn just before the New Year

I realized after writing yesterday's post that the yarn that I'm using for Pair 1 of 2014 (now dubbed the BahBah BRIGHT Sheep socks) isn't actually in my stash. I'm kind of surprised by that, I thought I'd stuffed it in there at some point.

This is Baah! La Jolla.  So, discount what I said about how many skeins of sock yarn I have that I intend to turn into socks in the next year or two. Or, at least add 5 to that number to account for the yarn floating around the stash that I haven't realized isn't in Ravelry yet and therefore isn't counted.

On Dec 19, best known as the day my fliptop mitts went missing, I also popped into Nina. The owner has a lovely shop, filled with high end beauty skeins. I always end up in a bit of a yarn daze going in there. She has some work horse yarns, but the majority is the nicer and more boutique yarns.

One dyer that I'd not seen before that she carries is Knitted Wit, out of Portland, Oregon. Most of what Nina had was fingering weight but I see in the etsy shop a number of weights. I considered grabbing a skein but thought of all the of the purple already in the stash and that I already have several pair of green socks that are mine and several that are the Philosopher's. It's certainly on my radar for yarn in the future but not that trip. The dyer mentions variegated on her shop page but I only could find shaded solids. From her items sold page there does seem to be a lot of rainbow options though, if you're looking to stalk a dyer for that.

I found myself over by the Koigu. Dangerous stuff, that skinny yarn. I suppose it's not too shocking that I brought home some to knit up.  Of course, as Sibling the Elder pointed out while she was here, it looks an awful lot like the yarn I knit into the fliptop mitts and some other BMFA that I knit up for AudioGirl last year.  At least I'm consistent?



The other skein comes from the new fall collection out of Manos Del Uruguay. I have mixed feelings about Manos. On one hand, like Malabrigo, I can count on them for interesting colors and beautiful single ply yarns. On the other hand, I really don't like knitting single ply under a worsted weight. So I was pretty excited to see that they have a pretty tightly plied sock yarn: Alegria.

It's new enough (this past fall) that there wasn't much opinion about it at the shop.  I grabbed this interesting skein.



They aren't my usual colors but I think it will be an interesting knit.  The colorway is Atlantico, so I assume we're supposed to think of sand, water, and sky. At least, that's what I get from it.  The yardage is generous--445 yards--and it has nylon so it should wear well.



Add it to the sock bin...

In the interim, I'm not sure what Gypsy's planning to do when I go back to work next week. Her current activities have almost entirely involved sitting on my lap. She's going to be a very put out feline next week when all of the laps in the house are absent for 8+ hours.

What hasn't been photographed?

As you  may remember, about six months ago I took a photography class with Franklin Habit. While my photography skills are still too frequently relying on a quick snapshot taken with the camera on my phone while I've moved the keyboard at my desk (or, more frequently and recently, with the webcams I have at work and home), I did have some time to break out the light box and see what I could do today. I have a long way to go but it was fun getting to try things out and not just rely on my usual "is the sun totally fading this out?"

The sun is out today and the sky is painfully clear. After I get this posted I think I'm going to walk over to Starbucks and the dry cleaner just so I get outside today and get some sunlight. It's 42 degrees so I shouldn't even need much in the way of a coat.  On Monday our high will be 7 degrees so I should get out now while I want to.

Today you'll get the projects, tomorrow the new yarn... Yes, there's new yarn at Chez Hedgehog. How many people are really surprised by this? Right, okay then.

I hadn't photographed the Muppet Scarf because it was for the Incredibly-Patient-Mother's birthday in November.  Now that she's received it and been wearing it, here it is for you to see. (Please note, this picture was taken in November)


It's Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's One Row Handspun pattern knit out of Schaefer Nichole in the Janis Joplin colorway.  I got two skeins as a pairs sale from The Loopy Ewe and ended up making things for my mother and the Philosopher's mother.  This knit up quickly on size 3 (3.25 mm) needles.

Back in March 2013 (wow, seriously, it's been 9 months already?), I started another Sockhead hat out of some Malabrigo sock. It has been given a few stitches here and there but I haven't made much progress. I'm not even out of the ribbing yet and it's December, nearly January 2014.

[Note: Gypsy's been sitting on my lap since I sat down about 15 minutes ago. Pyewacket just hopped up and was very confused as to why there wasn't room for her also on my lap. Not that she wasn't welcome, but she'd have had to lay on top of Gypsy and that probably wouldn't have gone over well.]

The yarn is some I got from AudioGirl in a trade forever ago.



I've got about 2.5" of ribbing and I think I need 4" before I go to the endless stockinette.  At my current rate I should be done somewhere around 2020.

I made a pair of fingerless mitts for my massage therapist (sorry--phone photo again here) out of some vintage Yarn Pirate Aran that had been hanging out in the stash for a while. I think I have enough for another pair, at least, I'm trying with the leftovers to crank out another pair. I'm taking bets on how soon I'll run out.

These have been sitting in bed and knitting so they don't get worked on very often. I am past the thumb gusset on mitt 1 though so those should start progressing. Maybe.

Oh, I finished up the Frozen socks last night! And I even broke out my sock blockers, aren't you all impressed?  These are destined for the gift bin.  My usual 1x1 Vanilla Rib pattern, 64 stitches on size 0 (2.0 mm) needles.  The KPPPM continues to be a lovely workhorse yarn, though there are days I wish it was just a smidge thicker.



In case you doubted it, I had help taking pictures.



And these final two are things coming rather than things really begun. The Philosopher last night had suggested that, as there were 5 days left in the year, I probably could finish another pair of socks now that the size 0 KPPPMs were done. I thought that sounded like a brilliant plan. Unrealistic but brilliant. Hmm, 5 days, about 20 hours for a pair of socks... sure I could knit 4 hours a day until New Years, right?  Who needs to do all the other things around here that I've been putting off...

Such it was this morning that I grabbed a skein of BMFA Mediumweight in Puck's Mischief and cast on. With sport weight yarn and 1.5 (2.5 mm) needles surely I could plow right through them. About 8 rows in the Philosopher noticed what I was working on. He thought the yarn was lovely. I said that was good, as these were going to be socks for him (why I didn't choose my own smaller feet, I ask you?).  Oh? Hmm, could these be fingerless mitts for him instead?

*sigh*



I've got another skein of Puck's Mischief around here somewhere but it's not wound and he doesn't ask for things all that often.  So I stepped away from the crazy of a pair of socks in 5 days (totally not crazy).

I did pick out my next pair though, to be started in the next couple of days and have the honor of being the first socks of 2014.



Note to self, this yarn photographs on a white background far better than a black background. Case in point:




And now I have to evict the sleeping cat. Hopefully she'll adjust to being moved to her basket.